by Susan Dunlap
I’d let my own assumptions blind me; I’d speared into his grief for no excusable reason. I felt awful. For the second time in this case I felt compelled to say: “I’m sorry.”
He wiped his eyes again and looked up, a wavering smile on his thin lips. “I thought being a cop meant never having to say you’re sorry.”
“We should be so perfect.” That wasn’t the slant he’d meant, I knew that, but my answer seemed to satisfy him. Again I was aware of the low, frightened, lonely whines from the dogs in the cages. I could imagine Madeleine and Timms, edging around each other, he too awkward, too wary to pierce the hard wall covering her emotions, and she? Was being in control so vital to her that she was too stiff and guarded to feel the warmth of any touch? Was she like the dogs in the cages, desperately wanting to be comforted, but unlike them, not knowing how to even moan?
Or was I still pasting the face I’d drawn over hers? If there was one thing I should have learned from this investigation, it was that no one really knew Madeleine Riordan, least of all me. I shut my eyes and swallowed hard against the utter emptiness of the face I’d drawn. I hoped I was wrong, but this time I doubted I was. “I’m going to have to ask you about Madeleine’s decision to go back to Canyonview. What happened prior to that?”
Timms wadded up the tissue and tossed it in the waste can. “Claire, from Canyonview. She called the house. Right before Madeleine left.”
“Claire called the day Madeleine left?”
“No, I wasn’t home then. When she told me she was going, I stalked out and called the conference director to get him to squeeze me in. So her call from the Wellington woman would have had to be the day before.”
“What did Claire Wellington say?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t usually answer Madeleine’s phone, but I was walking by and she was across the room, so I picked it up.”
“Did you hear her conversation?”
“No, I wouldn’t have intruded.”
“But you argued about the call?”
He shook his head. “No. I couldn’t. When she told me she was leaving, I felt like I’d been sucked down the drain. I just walked out.”
“You didn’t try to tell her how you felt?”
His long fingers squeezed against the metal tray. “With Madeleine it wouldn’t have mattered, not if there was something she had to do. Doing the right thing, that always came first. People were forever second.” He glared up at me, daring me to disagree.
But I wouldn’t have. I wondered if Madeleine had had any inkling how devastating that dismissive way of life was. Had the possibility that Timms would be hurt even entered the equation? I doubted it. I was willing to bet she wouldn’t have hurt him intentionally; she’d simply have assumed he understood the importance of whatever need she was responding to. Checking against Michael’s statement, I asked, “Did you drive her back to Canyonview?”
He squeezed his eyes shut and it was a moment before he got out the word: “No.”
“Why not?” I said softly.
“She didn’t need me.” His shoulders hunched forward and his narrow face drew into the hollow they made. He looked like a Saluki cowering in the corner. But his voice was angry, like he’d been slapped. “She had some guy come drive her in her car. Some sleazy guy in a stained yellow sweater. The kind of guy she wouldn’t have let near the sofa.”
All the tension of the day exploded; I had to bite my lip hard to keep from guffawing. It would have been unprofessional, and there was no way I could explain it well enough for Herbert Timms to understand. But the picture of Herman Ott filtered through his respectable, upper-middle-class mind was just about more than I could handle. I asked for a description, just to be sure. And as he gave me his picture of Ott, my amusement faded. Ott could have told me about that drive. He hadn’t. That didn’t surprise me. I tucked that bit of information away; later I’d see what it could lever out of Ott.
I questioned Timms about calls from friends, or business associates, or anyone, but for all he knew of his wife’s social world he might have spent the last year locked in his veterinary clinic. I had the sense that he loved her much as he might his dog: he could hold him close and scratch behind his ears, but he wouldn’t ask him for a recount of the day’s events. I asked about motives. He had no idea why she was killed. “Dr. Timms, you lived with her for two years. What did she do with her time besides work?”
“Well, she watched football. She was a big 49ers fan. She knew every play, and she could call them before the quarterback did.”
“She guessed what they were going to run on every down?” I demanded. Sportscasters who’ve boned up all week can’t do that.
“Well, no, sometimes the coaches made the wrong calls.”
Now I did laugh. That sounded like the Madeleine Riordan I’d known.
Timms stared at me. Slowly, he smiled. “She was a very intelligent woman. Not being in charge drove her crazy. You wouldn’t believe what she put up with from her clients; she didn’t care, as long as she called the shots. Even after all these years, it infuriated her to have to lean on a cane.”
I recalled Coco Arnero threatening her, and her still keeping him on as a client. So she could plan his next hearing? “She didn’t choose to just watch the football games, she was sort of a backseat coach?”
“She even bid on the KQED-TV auction last year when the prize was a day with the quarterback coach.”
Neither one of us commented on how such a day might have altered the 49ers’ season.
I might have misjudged Herbert Timms before, but I was clear on Madeleine Riordan now. I thought of the long gray tube Coco had been carrying and its double down on the platform in the canyon. Madeleine Riordan was connected to the parking perp, all right. And unless that relationship was entirely out of character for her, she wasn’t merely an amused observer to his escapades.
The Madeleine Timms described was the woman like Howard; she would never have been content to sit and listen to someone else’s sting.
I could picture her sitting outside on the path at Canyonview, next to the bushes that concealed the parking perp. She had been on the sidelines, all right, and not as a favored fan; she’d have acted as coach. She would have been no more able than Howard to resist the urge to plan the incidents.
Madeleine didn’t condone violence. Even during the antiwar demonstrations she’d refused to drive bomb-makers. I thought back to Eckey and the purple dye. For a woman who wanted to make Parking Enforcement look ridiculous, that sting was perfect. No danger, just ridicule. Even the most patient of Parking Enforcement personnel would be outraged. Eckey was. And the meter minders citizens hated, the Elgin Tiresses who stood in wait for meters to click onto EXPIRED, who puffed up like bantams when citizens accused them of quotas, they’d be the laughingstocks of the city. I was willing to bet if Madeleine had a regret, it was that her last play was wasted on Eckey.
It sounded like a crass reason to leave a husband. But it wasn’t just a game, it was one last clutch at life.
CHAPTER 20
IT WAS ONE THING to be sure Madeleine Riordan had orchestrated the parking enforcement capers, quite another to prove it. Her husband, Herbert Timms, denied it: “My wife was a lawyer; her life’s work was upholding the law.” But after he had uttered those uninspired words, a tiny smile pricked at the corners of his mouth. And that little fleck of impish pleasure showed me what Madeleine had seen in him. Alas, I also believed he was being truthful—not that Madeleine hadn’t been the culprit, but that he didn’t know she was. She wouldn’t have told him.
I couldn’t imagine being involved in a caper I enjoyed as much as Madeleine must have this one, and not telling Howard—not planning it together sitting cross-legged on the king-size bed, our knees nearly touching, an open box of pizza within reach, both of us interrupting with What abouts and Why don’t wes one on top of another, our voices getting louder, hands clapping with glee, until we found the perfect plan, flung our arms around each other, and
in all probability kicked the pizza box off onto the floor. That, more than the actual event, would have been the fun of the capers: the planning, the closeness.
But Madeleine had been a solitary woman. For her the strategy, the execution, the panache of the caper would have been reward enough. And since the success of the caper would have reminded her of the fact she never questioned—that she was more clever than anyone else involved—there would be hardly anyone worth sharing the success with. Still, the temptation to savor—to gloat—must have been overwhelming.
But if Madeleine had confided in anyone—who? Someone clever, ingenious, and who relished a victory over the forces of law and bureaucracy as much as she did. She’d choose a friend of long enough standing to assure trust. I was willing to bet that person was Herman Ott. Ott could have told me that, too. Ott had his standards. But so did I. I added this latest debit to his balance sheet. He was running well in the red, but I wasn’t ready to cash in yet.
I could picture Madeleine sitting in her room at Canyonview creating the later—the clever—parking capers. She was a lawyer, a systematic, organized woman. A list maker. A woman who wrote down pros and cons before coming to a decision. She was from the world of legal pads.
There had to be written plans for the capers.
But Pereira had searched her room and found nothing.
I started the car. That did not mean there were no plans. We simply hadn’t looked in the right place.
I would have given a lot to head right back to Canyonview, but Inspector Doyle could still be there. If so, I might convince him there was an overriding reason why I wasn’t back at the station per his orders poring over the files on the parking perp—that I was hot on the trail of the one item that would tie the parking pranks to Madeleine’s murder. If he was willing to listen at all.
I had two options. Number one: Take the chance of a furious Doyle co-opting my search, making off with the booty, and dispatching me back to files. Number two: Stop on Solano Avenue at Noah’s for a lox schmear on a sesame bagel and walk down to Peet’s for coffee, and give Doyle time to finish up at Canyonview.
I ate.
It was just after one P.M. when I walked down to the companionway. Murakawa was sitting next to the door of Claire’s room.
“How is she?” I asked.
Pushing his lanky body up, he said, “Nothing’s changed. She hasn’t come out of the sedation. It’s been a long time since last night, too long for a woman in her condition to be out without her doctor checking on her. I told Delia to notify him.”
Delia must have been delighted to discover this new layer of medical authority. “And did she?”
“Got the answering service. I told her that wasn’t good enough, that they’d have to call the emergency number.”
“Didn’t Delia know that?”
Murakawa nodded. “Yeah, she said they were tracking him down.”
“So no one’s been in there this morning, or in Madeleine’s room.”
“Right,” Murakawa said a bit too quickly, as if I’d questioned his competence.
Lowering my voice, I said, “I think I’m on to something. Down at the end of the path.” I made my way down the dirt and board steps and along the path. The bushes at the end seemed thinner now in the midday sunlight. I checked the path near them, not expecting chair leg or runner marks to have survived some number of days’ wear plus the scrapings of any number of feet. But there was one round hole that could have come from a chair leg being pressed into uneven ground to level it. Bending closer, I could see another. It took me only a minute to separate the branches of the jade plant and, using a handkerchief to shield it, extricate an 8-by-11 metal box, one of those flat, fire-resistant boxes in which people keep their papers. It was locked. I carried it back to the companionway, and before he could ask about it, said to Murakawa, “Locked. But I have the feeling it will open itself in my office. Let me know when you’ve seen the doctor. Stay here till you do. We need a clear handle on Claire’s condition.”
“You want me to call you when the doctor gets here?”
“No, you ask him. Get his opinion of how lucid she was last week, yesterday, and what’s going on now. You speak his language; he’ll give you clear information.” I walked across the companionway. “Oh, and when you see Delia and Michael, find out exactly the last time they took Madeleine down to sit by the jade plant.”
I hurried around the house to the patrol car and made it back to the station in record time. Howard was at his desk when I walked into our tiny office. It was midday-bright outside, but in here it could have been a bear cave in January. The overhead light was on, as it was every day. And Howard, facing his desk, had his chair a foot out into the aisle to allow room for his legs. He looked like a parent at back-to-school night. He also took up half the aisle.
“You’re bringing a gift?” he said swiveling around to face me and the metal box.
“Actually, yes. You’ll enjoy this.” I put the box in the middle of my desk. “Unless I am way off base, this was Madeleine Riordan’s.”
Howard looked at the flimsy home-safe box in disgust. “I’d have credited Madeleine with better judgment. I hope she didn’t put anything she wanted to keep to herself in there.”
“My guess is she didn’t have much choice. She was most concerned about weather—the box was outside—and she had to use whatever she already had at home. Thus, this.”
“What’s Madeleine’s contraband?”
“Papers.”
He looked more closely at the silvery box. “Locked, huh?”
“Right. And the fact that she felt compelled to lock it, and to hide it outside, makes a good case that even in a posh place like Canyonview a patient can’t count on anything in her room going unnoticed, or untouched.” I cringed at the thought of orderly, controlled Madeleine Riordan living with the knowledge that nothing was private. It was degrading for a woman nearly half a century old to have to hide her papers like a teenager locking her diary.
Howard was already fingering a ring of keys. I reached out a hand. Howard grinned.
Still careful to preserve any fingerprints, I inserted the first key. It worked. Opening the box, I lifted out a crumpled and restraightened sheet of yellow paper and glanced at the drawing of a car wheel with what appeared to be a flaccid wart at the two o’clock position. “Eckey will be interested to see the ingredients in her purple makeup,” I said, handing the sheet to Howard.
The yellow paper was just what I’d expected, and it confirmed my hunch that Madeleine had been the parking enforcement pranks planner. We would check the writing against hers, of course, but there was no question in my mind. I reopened the box. The second sheet was unrumpled, wedged into the bottom of the box the way papers get if undisturbed. I realized I was holding my breath. This was the paper that interested me. The first sheet—plans for a caper already done—had been handled, wadded, and straightened, but this one looked untouched. Leaving it as it was in the box, I read it, and ended up laughing.
“What?” Howard insisted.
“Tiress better watch out.”
Howard was veritably rubbing his hands together. I could see why he was the one cop who had really liked Madeleine Riordan. And more to the point, I could see what he’d liked about her. I found myself almost relieved that the two of them hadn’t known each other better. The stings they could have come up with together! “So she was out to get old Tight Ass? What’d she have in mind for him?”
I wished Madeleine could have been here to see Howard’s reaction. Even by her stringent standards, praise from Howard would have been a trophy worth keeping. I pulled my chair free of the desk, slid it toward the window, and sat. “You know, Howard, the more I find out about this woman, the sorrier I am I didn’t know her. This caper she’s worked up here is a masterwork. First of all she sets the scene at Haste and Bowditch, at the top of Peoples’ Park, by the spot under the trees where the regulars hang out.”
“The regulars, who view
Tight Ass like the city’s contribution to street farce.”
“Then she has her minion block the slots on four parking meters on Haste—three together and the fourth three spaces down. Look here, Howard, the woman is so thorough she’s even listed that the slot blocks need to be three eighths of an inch in from the outside surface of the meter.”
Howard nodded approvingly, his curly red hair flapping in response to the enthusiastic assent. “So the blocks won’t be visible to the people who parked in those spaces.”
“Three meters so it will give her minion at least four minutes to do his dirty work.”
“And the park regulars will keep Tiress focused on his tickets or on them.”
“And while old Elgin is writing away?” I quizzed, shielding the sheet, and waiting for Howard’s inspiration, as if this were the Super Bowl of Sting.
Howard leaned back. “Well, she’s already chained the Cushman to a phone pole, stolen the marker sticks, sprayed purple paint …” He began pulling at his already long, prominent chin. “Tire theft? Dangerous, but … In four minutes New York thieves could take apart the whole Cushman. Of course, not silently.”
“Nope. Nothing so destructive. In every one of the capers she had a light tone. In this one, her minion paints the Cushman seat with glue.” I pointed to the bottom of the sheet. “Here’s the recipe for the glue.”
Howard clapped his hands together. “Stick Fast! I haven’t seen that stuff since I was a kid! I always knew Madeleine had potential, but I never suspected. She had such a good act. God himself wouldn’t have figured her for this.” He shook his head. “I am so sorry she’s dead.” His shoulders slumped forward, and the hands that had clapped together pressed into his thighs. “You know, I never even visited her after I heard she was sick.” He stared down at them. “I don’t do well in hospitals and places like that.” Places people go to die, he meant, but he didn’t say that. “It’s real hard for me; I get there and I can’t think of anything to say, and I feel like an ass talking about myself, but I don’t want to ask her how she is, or hear her answer, or, God forbid, have to respond to it. I feel like a heel talking about the future, and a jerk if I just stand there saying nothing … It’s all I can do to send a card.” He swallowed. “I didn’t even do that. But if I’d known all this about her, I would have. For all the difference that makes now.”